The New World
by Fennrysha
Summary: A one off focusing on Kohta and his favorite things in the world.  This is my first submission and I've tried to be accurate with regards to weaponry and the spirit of the characters from the anime. Please let me know how it is!


Obviously, I do not own HighSchool of the Dead or any of these characters.

The New World

Tokyo Tower. Dusk. Hirano Kohta ran up the metal stairs turning time and time again as each flight of stairs twisted back upon itself. The international orange paint giving everything a strange, ruddy glow in the diminishing light. He was sweating and his glasses began to fog. Kohta wasn't the most athletic individual. In fact, he wasn't athletic at all.

The pudgy, spectacled teen rounded another corner and came to a small landing.

"Ahhhh, here it is," he said to himself.

Before him was an assortment of weapons. Someone had been setting up this spot as a defensive position. He had spied it from below and there was the weapon he had seen. A tripod mounted M2HB machine gun. _Niiice_. Next to it were several other weapons but no sign of whoever had left them. _Arigato whoever you are._

His attention immediately returned to the fighting. Twelve meters below, his friends were fighting off the mindless horde. Only he and Alice and Zeke the dog had made it over the chained gate before those monsters had caught up to the group.

Komuro fired the small handgun, taking down a few attackers before he went to work with the baseball bat. He dropped a few more but the numbers were not in his favor.

_You'll never get anywhere with that, Takashi._ Kohta smiled. _I've got your back._

He grabbed an M40 sniper rifle that lay on the metal grating and took quick, but careful, aim. Three pulls of the trigger and Takashi was in the clear.

_Next target._ Saeko was defending herself against a handful of those creatures. The sword given to her by Takagi's father flashed over and over. She was doing fine. She even looked like she was enjoying this. _I'll let her have her fun for now._

_Next target._ There was Rei, armed with her spear. She was battling admirably, having taken down four adversaries but they kept coming and she was beginning to tire.

Kohta again took aim, gauged his heartbeat. Fire. Fire. Fire. Three shots. Three kills. _Like a machine_. He smiled.

Quickly, he noticed the nurse, Shizuka, in a run. He chuckled. That was a sight to behold. But she was being chased. He put his eye to the scope once more, the rifle coughed and her pursuer fell. She turned and waved to him.

"Arigato Hirano!" she called.

He chuckled. _No time for pleasantries._

A scream!

"Saaayaaaa!" Kohta responded as if it was a battle cry.

He quickly found her grappling with a beast. The former human was trying to take a bite out of Takagi Saya.

_Oh no you don't fucker! Not Saya. NOT. MY. SAYA._

Kohta took careful aim. The struggling between the two making this a difficult shot. His finger barely touching the trigger, waiting for his opportunity.

_There._

The shot tore through the frilly fabric of Takagi's blouse just above her shoulder, but missed her flesh completely. The round penetrated the creature's head through the eye and exited through the back of the head, taking with it shards of skull and what was once grey matter, but was now black chunks and a thick, dark liquid. Saya stood there for several seconds wondering why the creature had stopped struggling before realizing what had happened. The body dropped to the ground and Takagi turned and ran for the gate.

Kohta found Saeko again. She had taken down several more of the horde.

_Ahhh, Saeko, your fighting spirit would have my heart if I wasn't already in love with Saya.._.

She was still doing fine but Kohta saw more monsters approaching so he rapidly dispatched the half-dozen Saeko was fighting.

She looked up in his direction, an annoyed look on her face. But after Kohta motioned into the distance and then to the locked gate, she nodded and made a break for it.

Takashi helped Rei over the gate and then Ms. Shizuka. But the new attackers were almost upon them.

_Time for quantity, not quality. _Kohta moved to the big gun set up on a tripod. _For such slow moving creatures, they sure move fast. Weird._

The M2HB was the modern version of an automatic weapon that had been in service since World War I. _A long and reliable history._ Kohta fired. A string of rounds lancing out into the crowd, tracers illuminating the surrounding area. Heads disintegrated. Chests exploded. And Kohta loved every second of it. _It pays being a gun otaku._

Saeko and Takashi had made it over the gate yet Kohta continued firing. Now it was just for the fun of it - quite literally, overkill.

Grabbing an M4A1 carbine that had also been left there, Kohta waved it in the direction of more of the shambling monsters. But it wasn't the gun he was interested in. It was the M203 grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel.

He grinned and fired. With a surprisingly quiet and dull thud, the grenade was launched. An explosion and a cloud of dirt and smoke appeared at 100 meters. Bodies of the already-dead falling over. He reloaded and fired another.

_YATTA!_

"Kohta."

_YATTA!_

He fired again. He was having fun now. He was in a rhythm.

"Kohta!"

Thud. Boom. More bodies strewn about.

"KOHTA!"

Reload. Fire.

"HIRANO!"

Kohta, lay in bed, smiling, Takashi shaking him.

"Time to get up," Takashi said.

"Whaa?" a confused Kohta replied.

"Must've been some dream."

"Mmmm," acknowledged Kohta. _Some dream is right._

"It was about Takagi, right?" Takashi asked, hoping for some dirt.

"What? No!," Kohta said defensively. "Well, she was there, but you all were."

"Well, it must have been a good one. You certainly looked like you were enjoying yourself.

"You could say that," Kohta replied.

And as the group greeted another day, as they drearily readied themselves for the stresses and carnage that had overtaken their lives, only one of them was smiling. Kohta had found his purpose. No longer "otaku" he was now "eiyuu." Hero.

Smiling, he put his glasses on.

_I fucking love this world._


End file.
